AN EXERCISE IN VISIBILITY

Sometimes I think about how people change over the years.. and how the years change people!!! The childhood years...those are the best years!!! Exceptional... no major worries in life.. years of complete bliss, where everything you see, you see through rose tinted glasses...and not getting your favourite toy or chocolate (or a pet dog!)  amounts to the biggest disappointment in life. Then you grow older and the teens come and go.... too fast....friends, boy friends, dreams, heartaches, pranks and crazy things....shared with friends who are the closest of buddies.....o those wonderfully wonderful years!!!!....and then you fall in love ..the time when you believe in those fairy tales and you believe in “living happily ever after”!!...Those too are good times (however brief). ....that feeling of butterflies in your stomach and the tingling sensation in your spine every time you see him or even think of him...he becomes your whole world and you can do anything....well almost anything for him!

Then comes marriage...and the first really big phase of responsibility. The happiness that comes with knowing that you are finally with the one you so wanted to be with, and the sadness that one phase in life is over for you (I wonder why does every happy moment usually have to have a sad one in the background?)....you have stepped across onto the other side and entered the world of adults....Marriage is fun, initially at least, when you and your partner are completely dedicated to each other....and so willing to please...then as you get used to that state of no longer being single, you start wanting more.....and eventually this phase leads to another crucial phase of life: parenthood....

Now marriage does change a person tremendously, but what really causes the metamorphosis is having children. Suddenly you are older....you are no longer carefree or your own person....everyone else is more important...You have responsibilities... those tiny bundles of joy who depend completely on you, trust in you blindly and look up to you as if you mean the world to them....Oh....there are times when they are an absolute pain...but still they adore you and you them....how can you not live up to their expectations?

Suddenly you have to put others’ needs before your own and you do- you start giving up things....you give a lot and in return learn what satisfaction and joy one can get from putting that smile on a loved one’s face. Children make you grow up like no one and  nothing else does!!

But what happens when your life partner no longer seems to notice you like before? What happens when the little beings also grow a little older....and don’t need you so very completely? When you start getting the time to think about all the things that you wanted to do but couldn’t do, you wished you’d done them...knowing that it’s probably too late to do them now.... all those things you had hoped for would happen....and didn’t happen....knowing that they can never happen now....realising that time is running out for you......when you are passing over to that far side of humanity?

So many things change....as life goes by.... and the years fly by so fast. Slowly, some how one starts becoming less visible to the rest of the world....they know you’re there but forget that you are still that person with needs and thoughts.....and desires. Every body just takes you for granted...and you start fading ....from the lively, bubbly, special person you felt you were and become a memory...a shadow of something that was. You start searching for that person and for the times gone by....but who can turn the clock back?!

YES...it’s true...after a few years of marriage and children, one becomes a little invisible...I mean people as soon as they realise you are married and have kids give you that “out of circulation” look which tells you how soon they’ve placed you in “that” category , the “not-so-much-fun-oldie” category. They assume that you will be doing this and not doing that...you aren’t supposed to....after all...you are past that stage!!!!

Where is that thrill of meeting someone else who thinks you are beautiful...who thinks you are special...who can give you that ‘much-needed’ boost...who can make you feel special? Why is it that those very people who made you feel so special don’t even seem to notice you any more? Why is the only thrill you can get out of life be at that shopping mall where you can find your choice of clothes, shoes or jewellery or something for the house or kids...and buy them without worrying too much about how much they cost.

I say you become invisible ....it’s not that people don’t know that you are there....they see you and talk to you....but they don’t really SEE you...I mean they see this person who is someone’s wife and the mother of these beautiful children and the daughter or the daughter in law of these people who are becoming older and need to be cared for since they are becoming like children themselves....they see you as the person who has to hold everything together and be there...be everywhere... doing the right thing at the right time.....This person with a complete family....This person couldn’t possibly be unhappy? Couldn’t possibly have desires, have longings, have doubts......a person who is still...even though so invisibly, so imperceptibly....a person!

I wonder if it is this feeling that leads people to seek out other contacts? Is this why some people cheat? Oh I’m sure a lot of times it starts off harmlessly...people just want a taste of excitement (other than that of winning a tambola prize or going off shopping!) ...they just want to find that someone else who is also afraid of becoming invisible in his or her own circle? Is this why two people who love their family....and mean them no harm (on the contrary love them so much that they’d die for them or kill for them)...still wander off to check the grass on the other side? What are these people looking for, what are they doing...other than an exercise of visibility ....an exercise to rid themselves of their fears of becoming invisible...or of being looked right through as if they were “past that stage”...as if they were old....an exercise to regain that confidence and to feel that thrill ..that glow that comes from being looked at from someone else’s eyes...to be the person that every one has forgotten exists...to remember who they were or could’ve been...not to be the person that everyone else believes they are and ...to some extent also not to be the person that they themselves know they are.

And then when they do meet someone...how many go with the flow to the point of no-return.....and how many come back mid-way...or turn back right from the beginning itself...returning to their normal life....carrying on as if nothing has happened....

All they have is a little memory ..a dream ... stored away in their minds and hearts ....a memory of that “visibility exercise” that’ll probably warm their thoughts when they feel invisible again?

It amazing what li'l things can do....I go through these thoughts and I recall what I read somewhere: Sometimes a smile, a nod, a shrug is just a reflex, which happens when the mind is wanting a change....temporarily giving a message that isn’t really there......like a record that plays off the track for a while......but then comes back...And the music starts to play the way it should.....on the right track.......the way it is meant to be....the way that it plays best!!!!!

(some bits of this write up aren't entirely my own ideas...but the ideas were nice, and I wish I could give due credit to the ones who started it out first but I don't know who they are....)